How to share the airspace?

[Wision]

At my club both planes and helis share the airspace. When flying a helicopter the most logical thing is to have an area where you can hover and practice stationary maneuvers. If there is more than one helicopter the airfield naturally get divided.
But planes use a larger space and at my field they tend to land if anything larger than a 450 class helicopter takes off. Does anyone have a good way of dividing the airspace or make some rules to make it safe for more helicopters and planes to be in the airspace together ?

[CeeveeSiN]

nope.. take turns.. thats how most fields do it.

and helis can use the same amoutn of airspace that a plane can.. not everyone wants to be shoeboxed into a hover/3D box.

I fly my helis every bit as big as the plankers do.. its a big sky up there use it.

so unless your club has 2 flight lines you gonna have to take turns.

I don't recommend sharing airspace with plankers at the same time.

[Wision]

The point is to have more people to fly at once. But yes, helis should have the room to make forward flight without restrictions, but should just be restricted to a know area when doing hover so they are not blocking the line of sight for the planes in long periods.

[Mr.Andersen]

At my club we dont devide the airspace but if several pilots agree to flye together thats OK but then its their own responsibility to avoid the others in the air.
And off course if you wont to flye alone thats respected as well.
But a que system is the way to go rather than devide the airspace.

[mydartswinger]

My club is largely a fixed wing club as well. There are only a couple of us who fly helis regularly. What we generally do is that if someone wants to just hover, they take their heli down to the end of the pits where no one is at and hover down there. If we want to fly more "airplane like" in a pattern, we can share the airspace with the fixed wing guys at the same time. Just hover long enough to get ready for forward flight, then start the pattern.

The biggest concern with both helis and fixed wing in the air at the same time is the fixed wing pilot's nerves. Many fixed wing pilots are intimidated by a larger helicopter's blades flying by on a pass over the runway, or just spinning in general. At my club, the fixed wing guys tend to run for cover when a glow heli fires up. A few have come to get used to my heli's presence and have even got to where they'll try to play a game of chase with me. That usually ends up in them nearly stalling because I'm flying slower than they can.

Long story short, if the pilots in the air are OK with sharing the pattern, just use common sense to avoid a collision, go for it. If not, wait until they land before you take off. Eventually they will get used to the heli being around (and comfortable that you're not being dangerous) and start taking off while you're in the air. Use a remote section of the field for a hovering only area for those that just want to hover.

[Bob O]

My Club's field has two runways, one we call the "alternate". We use one end of the alternate runway for heli flying and the planes stay away from that area. But if we want to use more space, we can get into the main "pattern" if we want to. There is another area of our field that we call the "3D" area, which is where we hover our planes and do other low stuff. We use this area for flying our helis as well.

But basically I've found that the plane guys get nervous as soon as a heli spools up and they land their planes. Either that or they just like to watch the helis.

[Wision]

Okay, thank you for the answers, seems like it's a normal problem. The big problem is hyperions G3 batterys, when people can fly 5 mins and only have to charge 12 mins, it will really crowd the airspace when people get them.

[Mr.Andersen]

Does that realy matter so much, i have 10 version 2 lipos so charging at the feald, whats that?
And im not the onely one with several lipos going to the feald.

[bloftin]

Originally Posted by Wision

At my club both planes and helis share the airspace. When flying a helicopter the most logical thing is to have an area where you can hover and practice stationary maneuvers. If there is more than one helicopter the airfield naturally get divided.
But planes use a larger space and at my field they tend to land if anything larger than a 450 class helicopter takes off. Does anyone have a good way of dividing the airspace or make some rules to make it safe for more helicopters and planes to be in the airspace together ?

Communicate with the plank pilots and let them know where you intend to fly and what kind of flying you are planning to do, and remember wind direction. A heli can land from any direction, a plane needs to set up an approach into the wind. Are you flying in there approach area? This could be a reason the plane guys land when a heli goes up.

Or maybe the guy is flying a $5K - $8K airplane, and just doesn't want to take any chances, and share the sky with spinning blades of death (kinda distracting to an airplane pilot or another heli pilot for that matter).

There really is no simple rule you can make up to thats going to resolve this old debate or actually make it safer. The best advise I know of, is just communicate with the fellow RC pilots and show other pilots consideration, and hope they'll follow your example.

[Jasmine2501]

Originally Posted by Wision

Okay, thank you for the answers, seems like it's a normal problem. The big problem is hyperions G3 batterys, when people can fly 5 mins and only have to charge 12 mins, it will really crowd the airspace when people get them.

Yeah I'm totally loving that... watch it though - with 35C, the battery goes completely dead before it has any voltage drop. With my old batteries, I could notice the heli getting weak toward the end, but these batteries do not do that. They go strong until the end and then you get to do a surprise auto-rotation... fun times

At my club we're getting more helicopters every weekend, but it's not a problem. If you can't fly the pattern with the planes, or don't want to, then you need to wait till the sky is clear, or if you're new, use the "hover only" area for practicing.

[kumar2494]

We take turns @ my club. Plus, most of the heli guys there are noobs with 450s and when I pull out my 600 and 700 , almost everyone stops what theyre doing and watches.